Balcony chants for the helpers in need are cheap. Ultimately, citizens have to pay more for their care and care – or the specialists run away.

What remains if the virus will be contained one day; what will disappear again What will remain is the plexiglass with which the cashier in the supermarket has recently been protected. The sneezing in the crook of the arm will remain, which is considerate even without a corona. The queue will disappear at a distance of 1.50 meters, the Germans will not remain so British. It will also disappear that gossip on the balconies for nurses, the heroes of that time. The question here is whether the gesture disappears without replacement or whether a new form of appreciation is established after the applause.

If it doesn’t cost citizens more than to step out on the balcony or answer a survey, they like to shower the professional group with affection. Every year, a survey for the civil servants’ association concludes that nurses (and nurses) enjoy the highest reputation of all professions in addition to firefighters and doctors; at the bottom are activities in the telephone, advertising and insurance sectors. If appreciation is meant to mean an attractive payment, a reasonable workload or family-friendly working hours, balcony demos are probably the last thing that society would think of to implement. As a result of the working conditions, not even one in four nurses can imagine remaining in the job until they retire.

It helps little to locate the reason for “politics”. Much is rooted in the fact that clinics and homes were delivered to the laws of the market thirty years ago. But the mistake has been made, and since expropriation by investors is not a viable option, today’s ministers Franziska Giffey, Hubertus Heil and Jens Spahn, for example, work with many levers: new rules for financing the clinics and staffing the wards, introduction of care -Minimum wages, general binding of collective agreements, new jobs, and so on.

How far they will go does not depend on them alone. What the virus will (unfortunately) not change much about is the way in which distribution struggles are fought. What (luckily) won’t change much is which personality type aspires in nursing professions: the helpful, serving and compassionate. At the same time, these are sometimes people who (unfortunately) feel that fighting for their own interests is a betrayal of professional ethics. Not even one in ten nurses in an old people’s home belong to a trade union; in hospitals it looks a little better. Verdi and the civil servants’ association are fighting stubbornly, other lobbyists in the health care system are more powerful than those in nursing.

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It is therefore a correct first step to introduce a minimum wage of 15 euros in elderly care in 2021. In contrast to the metal industry, only politicians can organize attractive working conditions here. Citizens in their capacity as contributors and taxpayers need to know that in the future they will either have to spend a little more on care and a little less on bells and whistles – or in the care sector the coordination will continue with their feet. Some give up their jobs, others don’t even start and choose an activity that may not be appreciated, but the money is right.